


The Only Living Boys In New York

by quodpersortem



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/M, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Pacific Fic Exchange, alternative universe, re-post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quodpersortem/pseuds/quodpersortem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Sledge and Snafu are drug-dealers in New York City. Snafu is the veteran; Sledge the newbie who has to learn the tricks of the trade. Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Living Boys In New York

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted as a part of the Pacific Fic Exchange of 2011, dedicated to Frooit.

_Oh the shame that sent me off from the God that I once loved  
Was the same that sent me into your arms  
Oh and pestilence is won when you are lost and I am gone  
And no hope, no hope will overcome _

 

All the city boys and all the city girls danced throughout the night: the night air outside was crisp and windy, too cold for the time of the year—but the heat in the bars and the clubs suffocating, that hot, that moist, the bodies moving together under the quick blink of strobe lights.

And all the city boys, and all the city girls, cared for only one thing: to dance, to persevere, to die in the heat of those disco lights.

This is the story of the underdogs: those who made it possible and who wouldn’t sleep. Those who did die, but not surrounded by friends. Those who lay in the gutter, waiting for the police. Those whose blood froze to the pavement tiles, so the first people walking their dogs the next morning find their animals licking up the murky brown ice, insane but ignorant.

This is it: the mighty, the messy, and the big mistake.

 

†

 

He is nervous, fidgety; knows he should calm down before they take this to the streets. The man behind him—a friend, someone who told him, « _I know a way you can make a lotta money_ » in his quiet, drawling voice—has put his hands on his shoulders. The fingers are gently rubbing circles into his skin, but he can’t calm down his gasping breath, the racing in his head. The tremor in his hands is visible, the sweat running down his back soaks his shirt even though it’s freezing.

He put the little plastic bags with white powder in his coat’s pockets—he will be keeping the money they make on his skin, or give it to Snafu. Safety.

His body is trembling and he is still feeling sick, even though he emptied his stomach fifteen minutes ago, and again before that, half an hour. The taste is persistent in his mouth but he refuses to rub the cocaine against his gums.

Snafu steps away from him; the feeling of his touch lingers on Eugene’s back. Snafu. He doesn’t know his real name, first nor last. If either of them were to be mugged, to be stabbed, to be—they don’t know. Snafu thinks he is Sledge. Family can’t be informed until after the autopsy. He thinks of his records at the dentist—he used to go each year, he went last year.

This year, things are different. The city isn’t as welcoming, the pavements are dirtier, his house is not a home—merely a shelter without heating, with running water two hours twice each day. No hot water, it’s never hot. He once washed his face when it was tepid; it seemed like paradise.

Snafu never cleans his nails, the black ridges underneath permanently stuck in place. He does chew at them. Eugene has turned around and is now watching him cut up coke—for personal use. Snafu always offers him some, and Eugene always refuses. The blue light makes it all seem surreal. It’s windy, even inside. The broken windows of their room will never be fixed. Other things will. Snafu rolls up a dollar billet and snorts. It isn’t sugar, but Snafu says it’s sweet. Eugene is never sure if he means the taste, or the high.

This is it. They are good to go.

 

†

 

He keeps breathing too fast and Snafu tells him to back off on the first customer. Eugene watches him, the dim light of shadow mixed with sunset makes Snafu’s skin look gold, his eyes—his eyes remain like glaring ice. He is fidgety. Eugene can see the outline of the gun in Snafu’s coat pocket, knows there are the same plastic bags he’s holding, pressing against the steel of the gun, ice.

The southern drawl trails through the night, asking « _How much, how clean_ ». They deal the cut-up stuff with lidocaine; only the rich can afford the pure. « _Twenty dollars_ ». Hands move, bills rustle, the bag moves from one pocket to the next. His heart is still beating fast. The buyer looks haughty, haunted; disappears around the corner in seconds.

Snafu lets him deal with the next customer. _Customer_ , Eugene thinks, _what a word_. The woman’s hair is yellow, as are her nails and teeth. She sniffs constantly. He remembers the dentist records, he should’ve had his wisdom teeth taken out. His father would’ve paid. Snafu is standing close behind him, Eugene can hear him shift in the dark. The woman’s hands tremble more than Eugene’s own when she hands him the money. He nearly drops the bag, she raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say. He looks away. The next person is lurking already, leaning against a wall maybe twenty feet from where Sledge is standing. Then the woman takes off; the money is his. Theirs. His. He isn’t sure.

The click of a lighter. The cigarette burns in the darkness and Eugene stares. The sun has fully set; the streets are blackened out, Snafu’s hand is on his arm, dragging him back inside with the whisper, « _Too dangerous Sledge, come on, come on_ ».

Eugene can hear a gunshot in the distance, a desperate scream. Wonders _when_ , not _if_. Imagines the dogs tomorrow morning, howling at their owners when they get dragged away from the frozen blood.

 _Ice Ice Baby_ , that kid won’t dance.

 

†

 

The flat has one room, a bathroom, and a sorry excuse for a kitchen. Eugene doesn’t cook anymore—the only warm food he gets nowadays are burgers and French fries. An occasional pizza, when Snafu smiles wickedly and gets home from his afternoon job early.

The afternoon job—« _That’s for the big boys, Sledgy. Back the fuck off_ ». He never asked Snafu about it again.

Now he can hear his partner in crime snore lightly; stopping every now and then to sniff. Snafu’s had a runny nose for weeks now—probably since before Eugene moved in—but he refuses to go to a doctor so Eugene assumes it’s a side effect. His blankets smell of cigarette smoke; musty and unwashed in weeks. They don’t have the money to wash, all clean laundry they sometimes have are their few clothes. One of the water pipes in the building squeaks, a persistent and drawn-out noise. He is reminded of one of his school teachers—a woman with a fondness of the sound of nail on blackboard. There’s the drop of water on wood—maybe it’s leaking somewhere in the flat.

The mattress is hard underneath him. Snafu is snoring again and Eugene turns around, pulls the blanket a little tighter around his body. He shivers. He knows he’s lost weight but there is no way to tell how much. Maybe his parents—but no, they won’t accept him back into their home. Their. He shudders again and the pain of the cold settling in his bone is nothing but an inconvenient familiarity.

Maybe, but then, no, he can’t make up his mind anymore. The smell of cocaine has numbed him after all, even if he doesn’t like it. Sawdust is sprawled across the floor, and he has to think about a customer they had today. Seemed like a decent guy, a business man, and good at what he does. First time he sold the pure stuff, pearly white—not ash white, like the lidocaine.

Eventually he falls asleep. The light bulb in the room blinks on and off. It doesn’t disturb him anymore.

 

†

 

When he wakes up, nearly three weeks after his first deal, Snafu is watching him. Eugene can feel the eyes burning into the back of his neck, blue, _Ice Ice Baby_. It makes him shiver harder than the cold that won’t give out, even though it’s nearing April. The Big Apple should be starting to bloom. It isn’t yet. Eugene wonders if maybe the cold stays forever in this neighborhood. He hopes not.

Snafu is still watching. He is sitting motionless, almost breathless behind Eugene. He wonders if something’s happened while he was asleep, if maybe—

But he doesn’t go there, doesn’t follow the trail of thoughts. Instead he pretends to rouse, to blink to the harsh morning light even though there are no curtains so he shouldn’t have to. He hears Snafu shuffle back, gives him enough time to retreat.

Sirens are audible in the distance, the sound canny because it resounds between the messy buildings. Snafu tells him, « _Go back to sleep, we are gonna make it late tonight_ », but he can’t. Instead he imagines invisible fingers in his neck, soothing him the way they did after the first night—then never again.

He rubs himself against the mattress, and has to hide the teeth marks on his hand—blue, purple, red but without breaking the skin—the following week. Maybe Snafu sees. He doesn’t ask.

One late afternoon when he returns to the apartment, the inglorious hole they call a house but really is just a cover against the weather and the addicts, his sheets are cleaned. He’s been out for a proper job, and hears he didn’t get it the week after. Cocaine makes good money anyway.

The mugging doesn’t seem like a real threat anymore. And none of their customers carry weapons. The businessman, well-built and a little tan, brown eyes and probably of Italian descent, stops by every other day now.

 

†

 

Sometimes he remembers home. His friend, Sid. The way his mother’s garden smelled of roses and petunias, and then lavender when the sun started setting earlier in the day, coloring everything in lazy yellows and pinks. The way he and Sid threw pebbles at the water.

He remembers the food and his brother, and his father’s stethoscope pressing cold against his chest. Eugene is surprised he hasn’t picked up a disease yet. The watercress-and-cream cheese sandwiches he ate during high school lunch breaks. The cold milk. His grandmother singing him songs because he always felt distressed when his parents weren’t at home. Sid and him again, out camping. He remembers the rustle of the trees outside, the way the rain picked up after which they had to go empty their bladders in said rain every half hour.

He remembers the smell of school books, the dust that came off them after summer holidays. The way his little room looked when he slept in, the softness of his mattress and sheets; his clean pillow.

Sometimes he remembers home. Most of the time he doesn’t allow himself to—the floor is too hard through the mattress, Snafu’s breathing is too irregular to pretend it’s Sid instead.

 

†

 

« _I don’t belong to no man_ » Snafu whispers in his ear one day. The coke is heavy in his pockets; the cold is starting to get to him. Eugene is tired, weary, he remembers German class and the word weltschmerz. He rubs at his eyes, jumps up and sits down on the kitchen counter, the hard rim digging uncomfortably into his thighs.

 _I know_ , he thinks. He doesn’t say anything, instead stares at the blue-eyed man, and randomly thinks his eyes should’ve been brown—his skin is too dark, his hair too, the light color always catches him off-kilter. The ambulances are still roaring in the distance; maybe the city is on fire. He hopes the city is on fire. An image: flames licking at the metal flight of stairs, turning the wallpaper to coal, the floor underneath them cracking, crackling, and the roof overhead turning to falling timbers at the same moment.

Someone shouts in the street below, someone drunken, someone lonely. When he looks out of the window, he sees two men. The sound of a fist breaking a jaw makes him cringe. Snafu is staring at him, standing covered in the flickering light of the bulb.

He shakes his head, walks down the stairs. Snafu follows him. Snafu’s afternoons are still a forbidden place, but the wad of money he saw Snafu count after he got back makes him wonder.

 

†

 

The businessman is back that evening. His driver is wearing sunglasses, even though it’s getting dark quickly. Eugene nods to confirm the prize, slips the man the bag. He waits, as is custom, until the powder’s tested by the user. It’s not cut up; they’ll get the green light. Snafu makes sure of that.

Eugene thinks he sees the shine of a gun but—a moment, a quarter of a second. Then the man smiles, and the darkened window rolls up. He turns back to Snafu, mentions the regularity of the man’s visits and Snafu smiles, « _He ain’t no businessman, Sledge_ », and then, « _Have you ever heard of the Mob?_ » Eugene realizes he should’ve known.

A flash of casinos, of whiskey, of the sweet stench of revenge in the films he’s seen. Snafu’s hand is on his shoulder; there is the next customer. The slip of plastic in his hands is something familiar, almost automatic. It never calms him down—he’s still relieved when the job’s done for the day and no cop has been seen—but the glare in the buyer’s eyes tones down and he thinks maybe they’re going to be lucky.

The following morning they hear a fellow dealer got shot by an aggressive customer. Eugene can feel the pinch in his guts, eating at the confidence he so carefully built up.

Snafu must sense his worries—he hands Eugene the bottle of gin they keep in case of emergency. He tells Snafu his real name. Snafu says, « _Merriel Shelton_ ». Then he leaves to get more coke to sell. Their boss thinks Snafu is using less than he does, but their business is going strong; the customers start depending on them. The woman with the yellow hair overdosed three weeks ago, and he takes another large gulp of the burning liquid.

« _Pretend you don’t care_ ». He can barely cope with his feelings—let alone hide them.

 

†

 

A month later it suddenly gets hot and Eugene wishes the weather will soon turn cold again. He finds the wish is rather hopeless. They have no good clothes to wear, the water in their flat stopped running entirely. He and Snafu drink tepid water from the bottles they buy at the small and cheap grocery store around the corner. They go to public bathrooms or flush it down the sink with some more half warm water to keep the stench away.

Eugene smokes. Snafu smokes and snorts and Eugene thinks sometimes he does other things—crack, heroin, he isn’t sure. He doesn’t see Snafu without clothing so he can’t see any puncture wounds the needles might give. No bruises. His own hand is dotted with his own teeth marks, and some nights he cries. The heat makes him to tear off his clothes, to jump in a fountain. The back of Snafu’s shirt is clammy when Eugene gets pushed against it by a passer-by; the evenings are too long; too warm. _Hot town_ , he remembers the song, _summer in the city_ , but it’s like a jungle of metal, with the toxic damps of gas, of people, of drugs.

The bottles of gin are gathering on their kitchen counter, and glass splinters of when someone dropped a bottle are still lying across the floor. They don’t clean up. Snafu’s old clothes have been thrown into a corner of the room, and Eugene still needs to buy new shirts.

They save up enough to fix the window. Then, one evening, Snafu tells Eugene « _You need to see all the city boys dancing with all the city girls_ » and the hard work for money to make a better life has been for nothing. A voluptuous dark haired girl presses herself up against him and he feels her soft hands work on the button of his jeans, but the lewd things she whispers in his ears don’t comfort him. He pushes her away, looks into the steel blue eyes that remind him of Snafu’s. The next morning a blonde girl screams when she steps into the glass. Eugene pretends he never heard anything.

Instead, he opens a new bottle and avoids Snafu’s eyes.

 

†

 

He gives in, eventually. The phone rings once, twice—sweat is trickling down his back, though that’s mostly the heat. He chickens out when he hears his mother’s voice, forgets about the dimes he threw into the machine when he walks away and back to Snafu.

The burn in his nose, in his throat, only minutes later, isn’t enough to make him forget. But it gets him through the night, and he hopes it might be the last time out in the street more than ever. The next day he pretends he doesn’t have any dimes left, and home has never seemed farther away. He watches Snafu’s hands, swift fingers hovering over the horizontal mirror.

Snafu sniffs, his nose is red, he has been walking around the flat at night and the circles under his eyes remind him of the tar that comes up from the concrete in little sticky bubbles. Eugene doesn’t sleep any better than he did during the winter. Snafu’s tongue is sharp, biting, the words still hurt but not as much as they used to—his skin is thicker now. He knows his parents don’t know where to live and he stops expecting mail.

For a fleeting moment, disgusting and impossible, he thinks maybe he should phone Sid instead. Then he remembers, then—

Then Snafu calls out for him and they are off, hitting the streets again.

 

†

 

Even after half a year, they barely know each other. He doesn’t know where Snafu is from, and Snafu doesn’t know where Eugene is from. He isn’t sure if he even cares at all. But the window is fixed before winter, and their coat pockets are heavier than ever. Customers line up. Messages of overdoses are weekly, then daily, and he stops giving a shit about it.

The shopkeepers at the corner get robbed, shot, die behind the counter and Eugene hides his tears. Life goes on, and Snafu punches him sometimes now, when he hasn’t had a fix in time. Summer is still raging hot and they wear t-shirts except on the job, while the bruises on Snafu’s arms get darker every day and he quit his afternoon job.

There isn’t any money anymore, hot food happens once a week if they’re lucky. His mouth is always dry, as are the bottles of gin. He quit drinking again. Snafu sometimes steals out in the middle of the night, returning with food he never shares with Eugene. He is still staring, and Eugene still pretends he doesn’t know, doesn’t wonder how often Snafu does this while he is asleep. There are no more evenings out, no more girls, they cleaned the glass off the floor weeks ago.

One of his molars is coming loose, he thinks it is because of the lack of vitamins. There is no money to go to the doctor. He’s got a wound on his arm from when a customer got mad, pushed him against the wall and threatened with a knife. He doesn’t feel the pain even though it looks like it’s inflamed.

Eugene had hoped for a new life, for money. Instead all he got was a pile of shit and no way out. Snafu’s old clothes are still in the corner of the room, his own mattress is starting to get moldy because the apartment might have fixed windows but there is still no isolation, and most mornings they can’t look out of the windows because they’re so damp.

They are both coughing; Eugene cries most nights.

 

†

 

One morning someone brings them a read newspaper, smelling of fish the way Eugene remembers the fishmonger did back home. He recognizes the man on the front page—it’s the businessman cum Mob member. It turns out he was a businessman with ties to the Mob and Eugene briefly considers laughing at Snafu because he’s right but then he reads the actual article—sees the subtitle, _DEAD AT 28_. The funeral on Friday is heavily secured, he was gunned down on his way to work and they are investigating why. There is a brief response by the man’s best friend but Eugene throws the paper in the gutter instead, watches how the ink runs in the dog piss.

It seems like the customers get harsher, or maybe he has more trouble staying calm. He smokes more too, tries to forget with the help of toxic fumes, but he starts to realize he won’t ever.

Snafu pushes him up against the wall that evening. He hardly changes, the dark circles stay and Eugene sometimes thinks if he listens to Snafu’s words long enough they’ll suck him up like a black hole. He starts thinking maybe death is the only way out. Snafu’s hands are on his skin and he doesn’t push them off; he isn’t disgusted at the dark smears they leave. He can’t remember what it’s like to shower anymore. The wallpaper shifts under the pressure of his back, he can feel the paper rip because it’s drenched with moist and mold and the stones underneath crumble bit by bit. So he closes his eyes and lets it happen, and thinks of dying some more. Dental records.

Eugene thinks he might be depressed. But then, he realizes, he would have offed himself a long time ago.

 

†

 

They are shirtless. Snafu scratches at his chest and Eugene knows it’s the coke. He pretends he doesn’t see or care. Eugene himself doesn’t snort anymore, it makes him feel twitchy, jumpy, ready to do anything he normally wouldn’t dare and that is too dangerous. They sleep, wake up, sleep some more, the entire day until it’s time to go out. Summer is passing on to September. He wonders what the weather will be like by the time it’s his birthday.

Breathing has become harder again, not because of the air but because of a painful tightness in his chest—he is starting to miss home, starts thinking, _maybe it will work out, if I just-_. He never does, he saves the dimes he might sometime use to phone his parents in a jar. There is nothing here that reminds him of home now, his clothes are gone, his hair is too long, there is stubble growing on his jaw. He pulled the molar out yesterday, then threw it out of the opened window.

Snafu laughs when someone ODs. He sleeps in his boxer shorts and now it’s Eugene who stares. Some of the caramel brown skin has been scratched open so badly it’s still bleeding in places. Each time Snafu doesn’t immediately wake up, though it doesn’t even happen a handful of times, Eugene is almost too afraid to check his pulse. The frightening idea that the only person he still is familiar with might be dead—because he doesn’t _know_ Snafu, he isn’t even sure he still knows himself—is almost too hard to take.

Some mornings, he is afraid to check his own pulse.

 

†

 

He writes a letter to his parents. _I’m sorry_ , he says, repeating it again and again. He doesn’t know why he is writing at all but then the envelope is sealed and stamped, and there is no way back. There is no return address on the back and he wonders about what their reaction would’ve been like.

The weather turns cold again early October. One month to go, celebrate. It’ll have been almost a year. He wonders when Snafu’s birthday is. He pulls up the collar of his coat, feeling the slow scratch of his new wool sweater against his stomach. It’s itchy, but he refuses to dig his nails into his skin for relief. Eugene thinks he might be going crazy.

That evening, he falls ill. His throat is sore and his nose is running, his bones ache and he is sweating, doesn’t sleep because he keeps retching over the bucket Snafu put down next to him. The sour smell of sick fills the apartment, and Snafu goes out for trade, income. Eugene never realized how much his companion uses, but now he thinks Snafu walks around with a needle in his arms at all time.

Blue eyes are skittish like a wild animal, his head feels like a balloon with helium, he is scared. People walk around in the apartment, he is sure of it, but they’re gone when he opens his eyes. The bucket is blue too, Snafu empties it when Eugene is sleeping. Hands are cool on his back, soothing, a cold cloth and he doesn’t know where it comes from.

After three days, his fever breaks. After seven, he is back in the streets because then Snafu is sick, coughing up his lungs. Eugene thinks it might be pneumonia but there is no way to tell for sure.

Instead he brings Snafu water and cheap cough medicine he bought at the grocery store, then looks away when he takes his fix.

 

†

 

Eventually he starts to forget what it’s like to finish reading a book, to read anything but his pocket bible that’s starting to fall apart. To listen to good music with passion, to use a clean bathroom or eat a hot meal. His favorite fantasy before falling asleep is the thought of a warm bath, purple with cleaning salts. There is no birthday cake, no birthday wish, there is nothing on the day of his birthday except Snafu falling asleep with the needle still in his arm.

Eugene takes it out, sighs, wonders what has become of them. His mind flashes back to Sid, the two of them thick as thieves, always laughing when they were children. Snafu’s arms are bruised black, it’s a wonder he can still find any arteries.

Most morning Eugene startles awake with his heart beating high up throat in fear, and his stomach growling with hunger. He looks at the newspapers to calm down, especially the real estate section, marvels at the thought of living in a nice little place. He and Sid used to have the plan to move out of their parents’ homes, then move in with each other. That never happened, and Eugene knows it’s because of what he did, why he left.

He starts visiting the free art shows in town. Saves up a little money in the jar he used to keep the dimes to phone. Starts hoping a little—but he knows that no matter what he plans out, it will involve the possibility of having to leave Snafu behind. Snafu starts to talk about Louisiana when he is high and hyper, still scratching his skin off. The thing they had starts to scab over, like Snafu’s wounds.

One of the customers presses a gun against his throat one evening, and Eugene finds he isn’t scared, no, instead he almost hopes the man will pull the trigger. His eyes are wild, his breath sour, and Eugene lets him take the bags coke from his coat. He gets mugged, and he doesn’t tell Snafu about it. He hardly tells Snafu about the customers he’s got, they are working on different street corners nowadays. They don’t split the money. Snafu uses too much.

Eugene’s weekly pleasure starts being buying a proper meal. There is a little Italian restaurant nearby, next to what used to be the grocery store and is now a tattoo parlor. The owners are kind and seem glad he isn’t using. He wonders if they know about Snafu, about him and Snafu. Probably not, but he sees them sometimes, walking past him and Snafu when they’re waiting for customers.. They never mention it when he pays for the food.

There is no money in drugs, not for them. Maybe he should’ve tried to get a proper job after all. Maybe he still should—but Eugene is stuck here and he has no idea how he is going to get out.

 

†

 

Sometimes he hears a song that reminds him of how his life used to be. Wafts of perfume, the smell of food like his mother used to cook it, right there in the dirty streets of the Rotten Apple—as he’s come to call New York in his head. Then the usual putrid smell of city comes back, forcing the memory to fade away.

He starts visiting the docks in the afternoons, when Snafu is high and happy, and not quite _there_ enough to notice anything else around him. The silt smell of the sea calms down his racing thoughts, and he wonders how difficult it will be to get back in school. He thinks about going to a small-town college, not too far from Mobile.

The jar with money is full, so he started saving up in other places too. The hole in his mattress, the top kitchen cabinet he’s never seen Snafu look in because it isn’t a place where he’ll find syringes or coke. Snafu doesn’t care for food anymore, his body is too thin—his ribs can be counted. Eugene can’t look at him anymore. The sparkle in his eyes has gone—instead the circles under his eyes are growing more noticeable each day, grow so deep they seem like canyons have fallen into his face. Snafu’s skin has faded, gone gray, and he almost looks like the walking dead.

School, Eugene decides, yes. He figures out how expensive the train ride to Mobile is, and doesn’t tell Snafu anything about his plans. Maybe his parents will allow him back in the house. Or else he can always camp out in the garden—nothing, he thinks, can be as horrible as this shit-hole he has landed himself in.

When he returns to his temporary hell-hole, everything seems clearer than ever. Eugene’s got a plan. He isn’t going to care about the consequences that going back home will bring—nothing that might happen can possibly be as bad as living the way he lives now.

 

†

 

Some asshole, probably new at the job, sells them messed-up drugs.

They don’t realize it. Snafu doesn’t test it anymore, he spends all of his free time with a spoon above a flame, the syringe between his teeth, the tourniquet wound tightly around his arm. Eugene never used coke again after the one-time try.

It happens before he can process what is going on. One moment, he thinks about going back inside, warmer and safer, _but not warm and safe,_ the next he can feel bricks digging into his back, his head slamming against the wall, the knife pressed hard against his throat. Eugene swallows, his throat is dry and he can’t breathe, _breathe, breathe_. The man’s breath stinks; he pushes Eugene right into the shadow of the chilly streetlamp-light.

He closes his eyes, thinks _it’s over_ the moment the knife presses harder.

Eugene doesn’t know what the coke was mixed with, but it can’t have been lactose, people wouldn’t react this way. _Maybe it’s meth_ , his thoughts are racing, _I should’ve gone back to Mobile sooner, a fine is better than dying_. He remembers the brick college building, how Sid and he once cycled there to see where they’d be going in five years from then. That’s eight years ago now.

He is holding his breath, and he can feel the knife break his skin, the light trickle of blood down the collar of his shirt.

Eugene expects it to be over anytime soon, the weight leaning in on him, but then all pressure is gone and the light is back and he can breathe again. He has to blink a couple of times, re-adjust to the brightness, and then he sees Snafu and the man struggling on the ground. Snafu’s got the knife, pushing the blade into the skin of the man’s jaw. He grunts something from between his teeth, and Eugene thinks it might be, « _Don’t you dare fucking touch him, this ain’t his fault_ ». Then, whispers. « _I’ll kill you, damn bastard. Fuck. You shouldn’t a-touched him_.» And. « _He’s my only fucking friend, you fuckhead._ »

And Snafu is punching the guy, Eugene can hear the bone crack when the nose breaks, and even then Snafu doesn’t stop. He can feel the bile rise in his throat, then realizes this guy is so much larger than Snafu—Snafu should never have stood a chance. Something between the bodies glitters in the lamp light and then Eugene realizes what it is.

He shouts, screams, throws himself in front of Snafu and then hears the gunshot, ringing in his ears. The quick steps on the pavement—the man is running off and he-

Eugene starts coughing and something comes up from his lungs, thick and hot and it’s not, he shouldn’t—Snafu’s hands help him to sit up and it isn’t until then that he feels the blinding pain in his stomach, and he presses his fingers to it, feeling the blood run freely, seeping through his clothes.

He gasps, thinks vaguely he should keep calm and carry on, like the English posters, but things are starting to fade and he maybe hears Snafu crying, isn’t sure because his thoughts grow blurry. He has to cough again, tries to move his head to the side to spit, but the mouthful is too much, is like the sea, is like-

 

†

 

The train ride to Louisiana takes days. The sun is shining blearily overhead when he leaves, but as the rails lead him down South it gains in strength, so at some point he has to close his eyes against the burning light. His stomach is grumbling, but he isn’t hungry. He’s got the window opened, in case he feels sick again. The breeze feels comfortably warm, stroking his skin; the bench is immeasurably much softer than anything he’s sat on in years, even though he is traveling second class.

Snafu is aware of how the people who walk by stare at him. He isn’t supposed to be here, he wouldn’t have been if it weren’t for Sledge. But Sledge is— well. He thought he’d do something in his legacy. He found the jar with the money two days after it happened, so crazily high that buying a train ticket home seemed like a good idea. That was when he’d seen the hole in Sledge’s mattress. The bundle of money he found there was enough to cover for all expenses.

There are better places for a junk than a train.

It’s been two weeks now. He doesn’t know what happened to the body, he tries not to think of it because it reminds him of how he held the Sledge and felt the blood pour over his hands. It reminds him of his eyes, brown eyes, turned up to look at him so desperately but he couldn’t do anything, because he was too high to think. Sledge did most of the work, the past months. The syringe sits in his bag, but he hasn’t used it in a while now, unsure of how long exactly it has been. Time passes in a haze, the date on the newspaper is the only measure of time he’s got.

He supposes the Sledge family took their son home, which means Sledge has traveled down, ahead of him. Maybe he can visit, but he thinks—no.

The train rocks, takes a turn, the sun shifts its position so he is suddenly sitting in the shade. The man opposite of him is sleeping, snoring lightly. Snafu remembers how he wanted to OD, right after, when the blood was still warm and sticky on his hands. The police had taken Sledge away, in an ambulance without sirens. « _He’s dead, go away._ » The old police officer said that, unaware of the impact his words had. Maybe they expected to find him dead in the apartment the next day, when they came to ask Snafu out about what happened. File an eyewitness report.

Truth is, maybe he wanted to die. But he knows Sledge didn’t—Sledge was working for the greater good, Sledge was the one who pulled him through. He misses him, feels the gaping hole in his heart, then thinks he should’ve kicked off sooner. Maybe if he hadn’t used at all—

He wishes they’d talked. That they didn’t pretend it was either the cold or the heat, that it was something. Snafu lights another cigarette, the packet next to him quickly emptying. There are another two in his bag, enough to get through the night. Tomorrow morning, he is in Louisiana. Even then it’ll be hours, maybe a day before he’ll see his parents again. They might despise him, tell him to fuck off, but he knows where to go then. Laughs wryly at himself, because his own money kept him from making plans. It seems strange the same billets owned by someone else open up an entire world for him.

In the end, none of it should’ve happened but it did, and he can’t change it. He’s kept the money, and the ratty bible. Snafu isn’t religious but it means too much to him to throw it away. The mildew he takes for granted, a reminder of his old life, which he has decided he won’t be returning to.

As the train moves on, the nausea in his stomach settles. He eats a bite, watches the sun set. Thinks of the red hair and the pale skin, of his only friend in New York.

Then he rests his head against the cool glass, and sleeps.

 

†

 

And all the city boys and all city girls still dance the way they did before. They don’t notice the way the blood clots on the pavement, how it takes years for the stains to fade away. The disco lights are burning bright, their skins glistening with sweat, the E.R. working after hours.

High heels on the hospital linoleum; these parents don’t know what happened three weeks ago.

The clouded New York skies are in stark contrast to the bright sun in Mobile, Alabama, where the light wooden casket slowly sinks into the earth. The stench of gas and general pollution isn’t at all like the funeral flowers, nor the flow of blood to that of tears.

These are the tears that made it beyond Alabama and into Louisiana.

 

_And you have your choices  
And these are what make man great  
His ladder to the stars_

**Author's Note:**

> I f*cking loved writing this. Seriously. I did. Fandom people, I love you all. 
> 
> Also, Mindfrills made [this](http://stoft.deviantart.com/art/the-only-living-boys-in-N-Y-253656960) awesome artwork for the story! Seriously, go check it out, leave her a comment and cheer her on to make more art (because I know you love it). It's not of a particular scene in the story but more like a general impression. Even so, yeah. 
> 
> The title of the fic comes from "The Only Living Boy in New York", [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJGSHMgbB0E) song by Simon & Garfunkel. The quotes before and after the story are both Mumford & Sons.


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